I once dropped a Mac off to your house for you to review, round 1996. I work for a software company, have worked for many, all Windows, except for the first Mac that came into the Ad agency I worked in, in 1987 I think it was.Suffice to say, Steve did a helluva job.

I bought my first Mac (a white iBook) in 2001 and christened it writing a 50,000-word novel for National Novel Writing Month. After putting up with the adequate world of Windows, life with a Mac was just that bit easier, smoother, prettier.

The iPod changed my life. No longer did I have to carry a bulky CD Walkman and clattery CDs, but I could listen to anything I felt like. This reached it apex when, cruising down the Queensland coast with my bro last year, I downloaded and played a weird old rockabilly song we'd always remembered from when we were kids.

And, yeah, the iPhone, the tool that's opened up my world to all sorts of new social experiences, got me out of the house, and got some fun again. Also, it's quite nice having a hot photo of [redacted] as my lockscreen wallpaper.

I was brought up on Macs - my father recycled all his work computers through home, from the Mac Plus to the LC 575 and then the I and eMacs - and I couldn't understand why anyone would bother with a Windows computer until I left home and had to start buying them myself.

For work-related reasons it's unlikely I'll ever go back to Macs, but the iPod/iPad family of devices are simply so far ahead of all the other options in that area - when you consider usability, software ecosystem, and specs together - I can't imagine migrating to another tablet/music system. Jobs' Apple has fundamentally shaped how I grew up with computers, and they've kept raising the bar. I recognize I've been lucky to have the wherewithal to keep getting Apple products - you do pay a premium - but it's been worth it. I really hope the company keeps that spirit going.

Oh well. From helping to install the Apple 11e computers in our school in 1981, to every computer, music playing device, mobile, laptop we own being an Apple, including those at work, kind of feels like the creator with the master plan is AWOL.

My first iMac was the cute little moveable screen-on-half-a-globe (still in the whanau) which did everything the PC had done, failed to be infected by the exotic bugs that finally killed the PC, and took about a fifth of the footprint of the clunky thing.) Followed rapidly by the G4 iBook and an early iPod. Replaced the iPod with the G5 Nano, but the iBook is still in the van, and I now have a G-5 all-in-one machine as my work-tool (I had the first model all-in-one earlier, but that was my sole iMac disaster - it kept shutting itself down. 3 free service&repairs didnt solve the problem. It's sulking in my mother's wardrobe while I ponder dismemberment....)

Steve Jobs was the face of Apple, as well the CEO. He will be remembered-

The one solid rule I do have with Apple products is to never buy the first model of any new product of theirs. Generally their stuff is pretty reliable, but when they have first-model issues, they have issues. That's what happened to my iBook.

(I did of course break this into little pieces with the iPad, but, eh, taking the blame for that sort of thing is what my partner is for.)

It's really notable how many people are saying -- generally in fewer words -- something akin to what I wrote above. They link their own work (and creative work especially) to the Macs on which it was done. I think that's quite remarkable.

I learned Computer Science entirely on Apples. There was something quaintly fitting about learning a programming language (Pascal) that nobody uses in the workforce, on machines that are also not much used. Both were excellent teaching tools and went a long way towards duping me that computer programming was going to be a rewarding career, rather than one damned thing after another, like it actually turned out. Maybe if I'd stuck with them Apples...

At the cost of stating the obvious, one doesn't need ever to have owned or even barely to have used an Apple product to have benefited from the design revolution of the early Macs. I still remember the first one I played with, in the office of a friend's parents when I was 14 or thereabouts. That was quite mind-blowing.

Thinking of this tweet by William Gibson, which is on topic, and reminding myself of the fact that he wrote Neuromancer in 1983, which is not.

I’ve never owned an Apple desktop machine, but I do remember the first one I tapped into was a school-owned IIe, circa 1987. It had the big educational games of the time by the likes of Spinnaker and Broderbund – the Carmen Sandiego series, Facemaker, Dragon World, among others. I also remember the monophonic sound chip came across as a bit cheesy compared with our C64 at home.

I have worked with Macs since 1984 - The Computer Centre at Massey had the 2nd or 3rd Mac in the country, and CompSci had a Lisa.

Steve Jobs has had a big impact on my life. I ended up working for CED (Apple NZ) in the earlier 90s finishing up in 98 as the "Apple Envangelist". (During that time having numerous chats with you at CED)

Steve could be a bit harsh at times - I remember being at WWDC where, when asked by someone about recent layoffs, he basically said those going hadn't really contributed. Some of those folk were my friends and I knew they had given heart and soul for the company - most Apple folk do.

But what he was was a visionary and, luckily for all of us, ruthless as well. This meant he got to execute his vision.

You have to wonder what the world would have been like if "1984 won't be like '1984.'" had not come true :)

In a cul-de-sac in Pt Chev, Macs everywhere, it was the late 1996 model I think, I freelanced to Renaissance, they said go take this to Russell, so I did. You answered the door, said put it over there, and I drove off.Me and a good mate put two LC's back to back and played Flight Simulator, in 1987?Mac for productivity, PC for solitaire ;-)